BLOOMINGTON – De’Ron Davis bounced into the Assembly Hall press room, as much as a 6-10 human being still recovering from a torn Achilles tendon can, carrying a small GoPro camera during IU basketball media day last month.

Then came the pain, followed by numbness. Davis told trainer Tim Garl he thought he felt a pop. Within days, he was in surgery to repair the tendon.

In the months since, Davis has graduated from crutches to a walking boot to sneakers, from picking up marbles with his toes to recently joining in some contact drills during practice and, as he put it in a February interview, “getting back to that love of the game, a kid’s love.”

That process began early in rehabilitation, with a call to Danny Fisher.

Fisher was Davis’ high school coach, and someone Davis has long considered a mentor. Davis works out with Fisher when he’s home in Denver, and they speak often. After his injury, Davis picked up the phone.

Their conversations began a months-long process of recovery, physically and otherwise.

“Since January, it’s been a roller coaster for him, especially emotionally,” Fisher told IndyStar. “Those first couple months were really tough, a lot of self-doubt with a long road ahead of him. But these last few months, he’s been in a really, really good place, especially since school has started.”

What Davis played of his sophomore season was built on his commitment to staying in Bloomington the previous summer, cutting weight and increasing explosiveness. He started all 15 of Indiana’s games before his injury last winter, averaging 9.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game.

At his best, he scored 16 points in 21 minutes against Duke. For long stretches, as IU coach Archie Miller put it that night, the Hoosiers “played through” Davis with success, against Duke’s lottery-pick frontcourt.

That night might have seemed far away as Davis watched his teammates play on without him in January and February. He admitted to feeling “helpless” having to sit by as the Hoosiers grappled with challenging Big Ten big men like Purdue's Isaac Haas and Michigan State's Nick Ward.

Away from the sideline, his conversations with Fisher kept him focused.

“Since I’ve been in college, I feel like I’ve gotten away from my game in high school,” Davis said in February. “I want to be more aggressive on the offensive end and defensive end. I want to play more freely. I want to have more fun on the court and enjoy the game... This is probably a mental check for me to get back to loving the game.”

Davis moved cautiously through his recovery at first. He wasn’t cleared to run until June, but he again stayed in Bloomington the entire summer to rehabilitate and work out as much as he could.

While Indiana moved cautiously through the early portions of his rehabilitation, Davis gained a newfound appreciation for the physical side of his sport.

“I think this process has really, really grown him up and allowed him to appreciate his body a little bit more,” Fisher said. “This injury has taught him a lot about his body. The business of basketball especially at that level, the level of IU, the Big Ten, this is big-time basketball.”

There were doubts, natural in the aftermath of that kind of injury. Then, late in the summer, Davis was cleared for lateral movement, one of basketball’s simplest, most fundamental physical demands.

In Davis’ mind, he could play the game again.

“It’s when the light clicked on,” Fisher said. “‘I can do this, I can move again, I can see myself going side to side.

“‘I can get there.’”

There’s been a steady ramping up of activity since, to the point that Davis was ready for limited contact by the start of fall practice.

Miller has been careful not to expect too much from his junior forward, but even he sees signs of the old Davis returning.

“He's starting to elevate to where you can get a chance to see him play a little bit, and I don't think that he's that far off,” Miller said. “The one thing we'll be interested to see as we start practice … is as he gets elevated in his activity, how does he feel on a back-to-back, or does he have to take a day off in between a three-day period of time when we practice, just because of the stiffness, the soreness?”

It could still be months before Davis finds 100 percent fitness again. In the meantime, he’s talked with Fisher about being more forceful and active at both ends of the floor, at staying aggressive in whatever he does.

That, it turns out, includes setting goals for this season.

Davis talks like a player who knows he’ll have to fight for minutes. He sees around him a team as long and versatile as any he’s played with in college. He talks about his teammates with supreme confidence.

“This year, we're just a bigger team,” Davis said. “We can spread the floor a lot more, and we run the floor well.”

Invigorated by the arrival of Romeo Langford and a promising five-man freshman class — and reinforced by Juwan Morgan’s decision to withdraw from the NBA draft and play out his senior season — the Hoosiers have legitimate NCAA tournament aspirations. They could be a dark-horse pick to win a Big Ten left open at the top by a heap of high-profile departures.

CLOSE

IU basketball enters the season with high expectations after a high-profile recruiting class.
Jordan Guskey, IndyStar

Davis himself vowed to be ready for the season opener Nov. 6 against Chicago State, and he isn’t afraid to set his own sights high.

“We just focus on the day-to-day,” Davis said at team media day, before decidedly not taking anything terribly day-to-day.

“Our goal is to win a national championship, but we're not focused on that. We're focused on getting better each and every day,” he continued. “I feel like we're going to take one game at a time and shoot for small goals. I feel like the Big Ten championship, win the Big Ten tournament, just work our way up.”